Electronic system motherboards are becoming increasingly integrated to support a growing number of features and/or more compact packaging. The motherboard is the physical arrangement that contains the system's basic circuitry and components. Typically, motherboards have circuitry imprinted or affixed to the surface of a printed circuit board (PCB) or other similar component. Motherboards commonly include the microprocessor, co-processors (if any), memory, basic input/output system (BIOS), expansion slots, and interconnecting circuitry. Additional components can be coupled to a motherboard through its expansion slots. Common expansion slot standards are the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) standards available from the PCI Special Interest Group of Portland, Oreg.
However, motherboard integration of features traditionally included in common expansion slots has been problematic for several reasons including Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and international telecommunications certification, motherboard space and other manufacturer specific requirements. FCC and international telecommunications certifications require, for example, that an electronic system not interface in frequency ranges reserved for other uses (e.g., 900 MHz telephones). Increased integration is performed to decrease the overall cost of the computer system.